Books One to Three Omnibus (Armada Wars)

by R. Curtis Venture

  Norskine followed suit, then Bro, then Daxon. Chun was the last to copy them, shaking his head slightly as if embarrassed with himself for bowing to peer pressure from his subordinates.

  Eilentes allowed her chin to sink to her chest, and closed her eyes.

  The first thing she felt — once her thoughts had stopped colliding with each other and settled down — was an oceanic sense of calm. Then the prospect of a visit to the Viskr homeworld flashed across the skies of her tranquility.

  There would be fire and blood.

  Dwelling on such things was not the point of the exercise; it was about as far from the point as one could possibly get. She cast her mind outwards, searching for home. Kementhast Prime, a class one world, its habitable zones so very similar to the regions Old Earth had called the Mediterranean and North Europe.

  She imagined Brex and Lasan, standing side-by-side on the doorstep of home, waving at her. It was not a memory but an ideal. She placed the twins there at the age they had been when they were all of them happiest.

  Papa and Mama were in the kitchen window, looking out at their children and smiling. They had their arms around one another.

  That part was real.

  She tried to imagine where Brex would be now; no doubt deployed somewhere along the front, wherever that might be. This war was hardly conventional; she had no idea how MAGA forces were being organised, and had she parted with Brex on better terms she might have felt more regret over not finding out.

  She thought of Lasan, safely at home in friendly Villium. Perhaps she would be walking through the streets of the market, buying food to take back to Mama and Papa’s kitchen. Lasan had bound herself back to them, despite her age, bereft as she was of the companionship of her twin and the attentions of her once-lavish partner. The old folks did not seem to mind.

  Eilentes wished she had done more to help Lasan secure a future for herself, instead of whooshing off into space at the first opportunity and barely looking back. Lasan had had promise. She had once known dreams of her own. She had only told Brex, of course, but Eilentes knew.

  If I survive this, Lasan, I will come back. I will help you break the chains you have forged for yourself. I will guide you as you once guided me.

  Without warning her brain threw a memory straight into the centre of her mind; a burning ship, the words of some remote mouth commentating on the deaths of hundreds, the out-of-control spins of dozens of smaller craft all jumbling for their fair share of the grief. It was a kaleidoscopically jarring melange of images, with sounds she had never heard, the fragments assembled from what she knew of battle and glued together with the unknowns which she could imagine for herself.

  They had killed her hero, along with thousands of others. The pain of it tried to spread to all corners of her tranquil space.

  She pushed it back.

  In doing so, she told herself, the Viskr allowed me to be born. No longer Eury, the little girl who dreamed of soaring in heaven’s playground on wings of burning gold, but Lieutenant Euryce Eilentes: the woman who did.

  She opened her eyes slowly, saw her friends and colleagues around her, their eyes still closed, their breathing slowed. What dreams soothed or assailed them?

  Caden barely moved; even his breathing appeared to have stopped. She knew his father had died aboard the Curtailer, knew that there was nowhere to lay the blame but directly at the feet of the Viskr, and wondered just how he would cope with that.

  She had never once heard him express anger towards the Viskr for it, but then with some people one could never really tell.

  She remembered Mibes. While others had disparaged the Viskr commandos by using the old Perseus conflict slang, Caden had remained formal about the whole affair. Business-like. It was as if for him, the fight had been merely a transaction. A game against an opponent whom he might even have respected. But then, that was Caden all over.

  She hoped he was casting his mind back to better days, days spent in the famously beautiful countryside of Damastion. She hoped he was conjuring images similar to hers; of his parents, his brother, unified impossibly as a single family which never could have existed. She hoped he was ignoring the cold, hard facts which history would have him recall, and not allowing them to poison his thoughts with the truth of Modim Caden’s untimely death, or Chia Caden’s burgeoning alcoholism. She hoped his feelings towards himself for leaving Lau behind were not so predatory as those which tormented her on Lasan’s behalf.

  She had no way of knowing, of course, that inside Caden’s heart was a smouldering pillar of darkness, smothering everything it touched, reaching with filthy tendrils to strangle what wistful memories remained. She knew nothing of the battle he waged against himself, nor the well of infinite emptiness which sought to claim anything and everything within its reach.

  Eilentes smiled with vicarious joy at the thought of lazy Damastion days, and felt that Caden would doubtless have been reminded of what he was really fighting for.

  His face twitched.

  • • •

  Caden walked slowly through the passageways of Disputer, knowing that — after a fashion — he was going to his death.

  After ten long Solars, he now had the opportunity to tell Maber Castigon what he really thought. To ask what exactly had gone through the counterpart’s head back on Ottomas. But he would not get his answers; not today, and quite possibly not on any other day either.

  Two obstacles stood in his way: firstly, there was Castigon’s apparent insanity, coupled with whatever unpredictable effects his exposure to the Rasa virus had had on him. Secondly, there was the small matter of the additional crimes which had reinforced Caden’s view of Castigon’s eternal guilt.

  Neither obstacle looked likely to vanish of its own accord.

  Perhaps there was no point in trying to learn why. The man was nothing more than a hate-filled sack of insanity, his human side withered away like some vestigial feature he could live contentedly enough without.

  And so Caden went to his death. The part of him which hated Maber Castigon, the part of him which sought vengeance on behalf of those many who had been murdered — the Shards who had been ambushed, and the civilians who had stood no chance whatsoever — that part of him would need to go. It would have to be bedded down forever, even if he had to throttle the life out of it.

  There was no chance whatsoever that it would ever be satisfied, and unless it was put away permanently in a dark corner somewhere, it would forever compromise his thinking.

  Plenty of room down here.

  Where else do you think I would put it, Caden thought to himself. Your whole domain is nothing if not a prison for such things.

  Yet here I am chatting. It’s not much of a prison.

  We’ve had time to find a little common ground though, haven’t we? That’s why you’re so happy these days.

  The Emptiness had no reply, or at least none it cared to share. Caden considered for a brief moment that he might actually be going insane.

  Psychoanalysing an imaginary split personality, he thought. I’d better hope Doctor Laekan stays in that coma; she could spend years poking around in here.

  Guilt flared brightly. Doctor Laekan had been one of the innocent bystanders to his investigation, and she now fell under the heading of collateral damage. He should probably have enquired after her health last time he spoke with Brant.

  Her face had featured in his meditations in the gym compartment, along with those of Medran Morlum, Admiral Pensh, and others whose names he did not even know.

  Eilentes had meant well, Caden knew, but he rather wished he had sat out the ritual preparations which Bruiser had passively encouraged. He had known at the time it was probably not a good idea. But she had seemed so sincere in her admiration, and so unlikely to take the step herself, that he had almost felt obliged to lead the way.

  Leading the way, he thought. Something I find myself doing more and more often these days.

  What he now realised was that Eilentes ha
d somehow manoeuvred him into taking that step, probably under the impression that it would be good for him. A nice thought, but she really had no idea. Ren had obviously shared nothing of any real importance with her after his talks with Caden.

  With Ren gone, the Emptiness was very much Caden’s own problem again. Part of him regretted waiting for so long to tell Throam anything about it; for all his truculence and grunting, the counterpart had actually been a very good listener, and on many occasions he gave surprisingly good advice.

  Now Caden was trapped again, trapped with the darkly unwanted guest.

  Am I so bad?

  Yes, he thought. That’s why I’ve been trying to excise you since I was a child.

  That’s not how it works.

  That won’t stop me trying.

  He arrived at last at the brig and signed in at the desk. The custody officer in charge checked and double-checked Caden’s digital seal, contacted the command deck to confirm his authority to be present, and asked him to display everything he was carrying with him before proceeding.

  After a few minutes he found his way onto the correct passageway and located Castigon’s detention cell.

  Castigon lay on his back, sleeping while a ’bot worked on his injuries. He was naked, save for his underclothes, and his heavily-set body looked worn out, as if it had had the vitality drained from it. His wounds looked like they had come from a fall or a collision, rather than from combat.

  If Castigon ever recovered, he would be very annoyed that at least one of his tattoos had been split by a large gash. The ’bot had not taken any aesthetic care when closing the wound; it had simply bound the edges together as neatly as it knew how. The tattoo was misaligned.

  Castigon would perhaps be much less worried about the Blight marks — two at least — which had been replaced with grafted skin. No doubt he would be very pleased indeed to find that those had been removed for him. Blight scars never fully healed, after all.

  Caden watched his ex-counterpart’s chest rise and fall, and wondered what he really hoped to achieve here. Yes, he had specific questions he needed to ask. Yes, they had history which needed to be brought to a close, once and for all. But from what he had seen so far, there was not much he could rightly expect from this battered, insane, and dangerous creature.

  “Wake up,” he said. He held his thumb on the intercom, watching Castigon through the glass front of the cell. “Wake up, Maber. Time to talk.”

  Castigon stirred, but was not roused by the noise.

  “Polybot,” said Caden. “Is he under sedation?”

  “No,” it said. “The patient is asleep.”

  “Wake him for me, would you?”

  “The patient must sleep.”

  “Bloody thing. CASTIGON!”

  Castigon’s eyes flicked open and his body jerked reflexively. He looked around, saw the plain walls and floor and the polybot working on his leg, and his head hit the pillow again.

  “Fuck.”

  “Maber,” said Caden.

  Castigon craned his neck, peered over his chest towards the glass wall, and smiled.

  “Ahhhh finally,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “You sound very different than you did on Fort Shalleon.”

  “I was on Shalleon? I don’t remember.”

  “You were, yes. What do you remember?”

  “Something something kill Caden.”

  Crazy or not, Caden thought, Castigon must realise the truth of his situation. He knows there’s no point trying to get to me from within a cell.

  “Yeah,” said Caden. “I know that part. Cast your mind back to Meccrace Prime.”

  “Why?”

  “Indulge me.”

  Castigon closed his eyes for a moment.

  “I remember coming after you, and fighting with that idiot Throam. Then mostly falling.”

  “What happened to Throam?”

  “After or before I stabbed the cunt?”

  Castigon smiled as if he hoped to see Caden’s face drop, but Caden was well-prepared to rob him of any such victories.

  “Get over yourself; we’ve all stabbed Throam. Afterwards.”

  “No idea. He bravely ran away.”

  “And you didn’t see him again?”

  “Nope. ‘Sorry’.”

  Caden bunched his fists behind his back. He had no intention of letting Castigon think he was getting to him.

  “So you, then,” Caden said. “You fell. What next?”

  Castigon began to smile nastily, but his face froze. A moment passed, then he looked both puzzled and unsettled.

  “I remember a voice. Weird.”

  “Whose voice?”

  “I don’t know. And faces.”

  “In white spiral waves?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “You said it at Shalleon,” said Caden. “What did the voice say?”

  “I don’t remember. It was beckoning though, wanted me to join in.”

  Caden felt a great weight sink through the pit of his stomach.

  “Join in with what, Maber?”

  “Its harmony. The communion song.”

  “Explain.”

  “I don’t think I can,” said Castigon. “It was… like agonised celebration. Noisy at first, clamorous. But then it felt like being wrapped in eternity. True belonging. And I didn’t want the song to end.”

  “You felt like you belonged?”

  “Yes, and it wanted me to. He wanted me to. He told me I had to fill the silence.”

  So close. So very, very close.

  “What does that mean?”

  “How the fuck should I know?”

  The one thing Caden really, really needed to understand, and it slipped from his grasping fingertips like a sliver of melting ice. He stared at Castigon, wondering if the man was holding anything back.

  “So what happened to me, really?”

  “You’re infected with something,” said Caden. “Something we don’t yet understand. Even if you weren’t a prisoner already, you’d still be in isolation.”

  “Oh, a double-fucking. Should have expected that from you.”

  “I never fucked you over, Maber. You did that all by yourself.”

  “You were the one who—”

  “Seriously?!” Caden sputtered. “After all this time, after one of the most lengthy and detailed trials of modern times, you really still blame me? Enough to slaughter our old colleagues? Our old friends? Really, Maber?”

  “You should have kept your big mouth shut.”

  “You blamed me,” said Caden. “You bitch and moan and then murder because you went to prison for what you actually, definitely did, but you think I should have just let you get away with sending me in your place? Oh, you are unhinged.”

  “You were supposed to be on my side.”

  “Maber, you can’t expect someone to stay loyal to you when you betray everything they believe in, everything you profess to believe in yourself, and then try to offload the consequences onto them. That’s just…. nuts.”

  “You have met me, yes?”

  Caden glared at him through the glass.

  “Yes. And do you know what I think? I think all that ‘mentally ill’ talk is a load of shit. People making excuses for you. You’re worse than ill, you’re broken inside. You weren’t put together properly, Maber.”

  “But somehow it’s still my fault.”

  “I know you. Don’t forget that. You can control yourself; I’ve seen you do it.”

  “So now what? Are you going to keep me locked up forever?”

  “For the moment, yes — you can stay right there. Once we know what effect that virus is having on you, things might change. But before you take one step outside a cell of any sort, you’re going to go back on your meds. And you won’t have a choice about that.”

  “Get on with it then.”

  “Ha, you wish. The universe doesn’t actually revolve around you, Maber Castigon.”

  C
aden turned his back on the cell and began to walk away.

  “Where the fuck are you going? Come back here.”

  “I’ve got some place else to be.”

  — 15 —

  The Long Haul

  Euryce shot head-first down the central passageway of the MICS Maidesvale, whooping with delight.

  She skimmed a thick cable being re-routed by technicians, ignored their startled shouts, and carried on; grabbed for a guide rail, swung her body into a junction, let her momentum carry her forwards.

  Held on for too long, Eury!

  She drifted towards the bulkhead, pushed it away with her hands before she planted her face into it, and moved back into the centre of the passageway.

  This was what she loved most about working the Maidesvale: only a few select areas had any gravity.

  Gravity is expensive, the staff officer had told her, when she had first come aboard with seven other recruits. It’s an overhead the company doesn’t like to pay for. You’ll only experience it on the flight operations deck, in medical, and in the commissary and dorms. Most of the passageways, cargo areas, and main engineering are weightless environments. Not that you’ll have much cause to be in engineering, or the cargo silos. Yes? Of course. There’s an input on gravity transitions as part of your safety briefing.

  How she loved these weird passageways, with their absence of decks and overheads. There was only bulkhead, with rounded corners and rolled edges, signage always duplicated at ninety degree angles, junctions which could branch off in any direction.

  It was a free-fall maze.

  Right now though, she was shooting through that maze along the quickest route she knew. No time for dilly-dallying.

  She reached his cabin, and banged on the hatch.

  “Open up! Hey, Danis. You in there?”

  There was no reply, so she banged harder. The hatch snapped open and she tried to push her way in.

  “Hey, woah woah,” he said. “What’s all this?”

  “Have I got news for you! Oh. You okay? You look terrible.”

  “Yeah, because you woke me up.”

  Danis moved aside grudgingly and rubbed his eyes with the tips of his fingers. His hair was wild, his eyes bleary, and he smelled of bed.